SMF 2.0 Alpha

My currently favorite forum software, SMF (Simple Machines Forum) has announced the soon to be released SMF 2.0 Alpha to the Chartered members in June 2007, and general public in Oct 2007! Current public version is SMF 1.1.2, hence jump to SMF 2.0 means there should be a huge change and improvement from the current version!

Database abstraction – with support for PostgreSQL and SQLite planned alongside that of MySQL.

Automatic installation of packages into themes other than just the default.

Email templates to simplify customization of forum emails.

Moderation center including post, topic and attachment moderation – to allow approving of user content before it is made public.

User warning system.

Additional group functionally including group moderators and requestable/free assignable groups.

WYSIWYG editor to provide an intuitive user interface to those users not familiar with BBC.

Permission improvements such as group inheritance and permission profiles to further reduce the complexity of the permissions system.

File based caching for a performance increase on all forums regardless of whether an accelerator is installed.

Mail queuing system to stagger the sending of emails to improve performance on large forums.

Advanced signature settings to allow the administrator of a forum to more tightly control the contents of users signatures.

Personal messaging improvements including ability to automatically sort incoming messages and a variety of display options.